Crucial NDSA meet with irrigation officials today

Hyderabad: Saturday will see a crucial meeting of the experts’ team from the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) with Telangana state irrigation department officials over the safety of the damaged Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla barrages of the Kaleshwaram project , and possible ways to rehabilitate and repair them.

The meeting is expected to be attended by representatives of the contracting companies that built the three barrages.

The NDSA team that has been inspecting the barrages since Thursday is in the state at the invitation of the Revanth Reddy government which has asked it to conduct a thorough investigation including technical studies, and suggest a way forward for bringing back into use the three barrages.

The team which visited Medigadda barrage, the worst hit among the three, and the Annaram barrage which too has developed serious and potentially dangerous structural issues, is learn to have spent around some hours at Medigadda on Thursday. From Medigadda, the team went to Annaram and from there to Sundilla for similar inspections.

Saturday’s meeting is expected to provide some initial inputs to the state government and it is possible, officials said, that the government would receive at least some indications as to the possibilities and potential remedial or repairs to be taken up at the barrages.

While the NDSA has been given four months to submit its report, the state irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has requested the experts team to provide an interim report within a month.